


Something More than Human

by Ifwecansparkle



Series: Something More than Human [1]
Category: David Bowie - Fandom, Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Bandom - Freeform, Bowie, Crossover, David Bowie - Freeform, Gen, RPF, SPG
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 02:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ifwecansparkle/pseuds/Ifwecansparkle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meeting between two artists. One wants nothing more than to be human, the other wants to be anything but.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something More than Human

**Author's Note:**

> Given the opportunity I will always write speculative fanfiction about David Bowie.
> 
> It doesn't help that David Michael Bennett is a Bowie fan.
> 
> Note: this fic was written before (and takes place before) Rabbit became a fembot. Therefore, I'm letting the pronouns stay intact for this fic, and its companion piece.

"Pardon."

The single word, spoken so softly and shyly, stopped Rabbit Walter in his tracks. That was The Spine's word of choice when excusing himself, and he spoke it in a warm, broad tone that allowed any and all faults to be forgiven. The voice that spoke the word this time was thin and quavering, with a heavy British accent. The bot turned to examine the speaker, a pale, slender, wisp of a man with a shock of bright orange hair which nearly rivaled that of HatchWorth. Well, from what Rabbit could remember. He hadn't seen the other bot in decades.

The young man was staring at him, glassy-eyed but fascinated. "That's brilliant," he murmured.

"What's brilliant?"

Two pairs of mismatched eyes met. The red-head offered something that was a breathy cross between a giggle and a chuckle. "You're a robot," he accused pleasantly enough. Rabbit smiled winningly and doffed his hat.

"My--name's R-Rabbit. But you can call me R-Rabbit. I'm part of Colonel Peter A. W-W-Walter's Ssssssteam Man Band. Pleased to meet ya! What's your name?"

"'M David."

Rabbit extended a hand jerkily--he needed repairs after the war, but he had refused them patently, and was still putting them off as much as possible. "Great," he said, grinning. "Just great to meet you, Scout. What're you doing here?"

"I sing a bit," he said with a shrug.

"What a coincidence, so do we. Well, sometimes. We're gonna start singing again now. The Spine says so. He says now that we've pulled outta the war, we'll go back to singing, j--just like old times. That'll be swell."

"Singing robots," David mused, grinning a polite but somewhat off-putting grin. "God bless America, I suppose."

"Heh, you know what? You oughtta stick around and come to the park sometime, huh? We sing there. We--we're gonna start back again, The Spine said we'd start back after the war. You gotta meet The Spine. You'd like 'im."

"I'd love to stick around, I really would, but I've got to be on the road soon. I'm only performing one night here, and then moving on."

"Oh," Rabbit looked crestfallen. "Well, you still gotta meet The Spine, okay?" He looked around, spotted his brother, and hollered for him.  
The towering robot approached and greeted Rabbit with a pleasant "Who's your new friend?"

"My name's David," the human half-whispered, studying the titanium bot with unseeing intensity. 

"Nice to meet ya, David," The Spine said, holding out a hand. The frail human took it. The handshake felt delicate and breakable.

"You're all robots," he said with awe in his voice. "Must be brilliant," he added as if half-dreaming. The Spine felt his boiler roil.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, exactly..." The bot started weakly.

"No, I think it would be brilliant," the man insisted. He grinned again, unsettling but friendly. "I always had the repulsive need to be something more than human," he added, as if to himself.

The Spine got a funny look on his face. He whirled suddenly. Only Rabbit caught the hint of panic in him. He looked desperate to escape from this human who wanted to be more.

"Hey, are you coming to my show tonight?" The frail red-head asked with genuine interest.

"No, no, I really don't think so."

A few months later Rabbit found The Spine listening to records on a player that one of the Walters had rigged up. Black oil that could almost, almost pass for tears made small streams down his face as he listened to music which was about everything but being human.

Elsewhere, a young man who seemed too old sang loveless love songs. And he wasn't quite human and he wasn't quite anything else. He was different than he had been only months before. He was always changing, always trying to reach and achieve the next thing, whatever that was. None of them had worked yet. So he went to photo shoots and did concerts, and saw his name in the paper, but never cut it out.

Instead he cut out pictures he found of a trio of singing robots, and thought about how lucky they were.

And The Spine wept for everything that they both could never be.


End file.
